True, Taylor Swift made friendship bracelets popular thanks to her song "You're on your own, kid." But the brand Little Words Project has been making friendship bracelets long before Swifties adopted them in full force.

Little Words Project launched in 2013 as a quasi-side hustle of founder Adriana Carrig. But the project soon turned into a standalone business. Fast forward to today, Little Words Project has 12 stores around the U.S., is profitable and has hit a revenue run rate of over $20 million.

Carrig joined this week's Modern Retail Podcast and spoke about the brand's journey and what it's focused on in the year to come.

As Carrig sees it, community is what has helped Little Words Project be so successful thus far. In its early days, Carrig would post on Instagram -- before it became crowded with preened photos and airbrushed influencers -- about what the business was and how she was growing it.

"[It was] really just bringing our community on along for the ride," she said. "It definitely was the foundation for what the community ultimately became, which was this group of friends that just want to support one another, help one another, when they're down."

It's easy to start an online community, but harder to keep it at the forefront when a business grows. For example, in 2022, Little Words Project expanded beyond its direct-to-consumer roots into large stores like Target.

"When it comes to the big-box story and how we keep that community build, it's really just about making decisions with the concept of the community first," she said. That meant making sure she was able to market Little Words Project in the same ways she had been doing online for years, as well as keeping the products at the same price point. And while Carrig has considered fading into the background and not being the brand's figurehead, she now realizes, "I do want to be at the forefront."

This remains true even when the products go viral, as was the case with the Taylor Swift song. The friendship bracelet became one of the summer's hottest accessories, after Swift's fans started gifting them to each other during her Eras tour concerts.

But, according to Carrig, while other brands tried to ride the wave of Swift fandom -- making new products to try and go viral -- Little Words Project changed nothing. But, the company was still able to be part of the fervor in bigger ways compared to brands that were only just now jumping on the trend. Musician Lance Bass gifted Taylor Swift a stack of friendship bracelets from Little Words Project on stage at the VMAs last year.

But even with the help of Swift, Carrig said the business has been so good that the Swift bump was only negligible. "We saw a less than 1% sales lift from that collection, which is immaterial when you think about the overall brand presence," Carrig said. "And I think it just goes to show that the brand had its own legs before Taylor. And while the rest of the world who jumped on Taylor-adjacent things -- that maybe didn't make sense to their regular product assortment -- they might have seen a more significant lift because they really did grift."

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